Statement of Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense in response to Department of Interior release of the Supplement to Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Study, which sets forth the federal plan to facilitate responsible utility-scale solar development on public lands in six western states:

We applaud Secretary Salazar and the Administration’s latest effort to ensure a fair return to taxpayers for the use of publicly owned assets. Too many publicly owned assets in this country have been given away over the years – including billions of dollars worth of precious minerals and oil and gas removed from public lands – because of the failure to put taxpayer protections in place while development is just beginning. Key among these considerations is a system of competitive bidding for rights to extract public resources – a critical feature of any system for development of publicly owned lands. By investing in technical, environmental, and cultural clearances early in the process, DOI has outlined a system that will also provide greater certainty taxpayer money is not being wasted permitting projects with little chance of actually being built. It is in taxpayers’ interest that DOI develop a comprehensive and environmentally responsible system for solar development on public lands, and this is another productive step in that direction.